Hard drive replacement causing constant fan?

[joefarrell86]

I have a 2.2 GHz Core Duo Black MacBook from late 2007. My HD recently crashed so I went to Best Buy to purchase a replacement. I ended up with a Seagate 500GB 7200RPM. Ever since installing, I've noticed that my fan never stops running and my MacBook gets hotter much faster. I'm not running any work intensive programs or games (only Safari and iTunes). I like the space but I'm worried that the heat and fan will cause unwanted stress on my system.

Is the HD too big for my MacBook? Should I return it for a smaller version?

Thanks for any help you can provide! (BTW, this is my first MacRumors post but hopefully there will more to come 🙂 )

 

[Pax]

Two suggestions:
- bad installation = hot hard disk
- CPU is working hard as Spotlight indexes the new disk

Download a program like iStat Pro and look at the various temperature sensors.

Does your HDD look very hot? It should be at about 30 Celcius, 35 C maximum. If it is hot you may have installed it incorrectly. there was another post on the MacBook Pro forum a while ago, I can't find it again. but basically the power leads had been connected wrong. Try reconnecting.

If your HDD temp is OK look at your CPU load. When your computer is doing nothing the load should be well below 10%. If Spotlight is indexing the drive your CPU will be probably around 50% and it will be quite warm:- maybe 70-80 C. You can also see Spotlight indexing by the magnifying glass icon pulsing in the menu bar.

 

[eman]

Make sure your macbook doesn't have any print jobs that have stalled. Your hard drive should be fine, I run a 7200 rpm drive in my macbook.

 

[iLog.Genius]

Reset SMC and see what happens.